Why the New NFL Kickoff Rules are a Pure Good
NFL.com – The kickoff isn’t going away for the 2018 NFL season, but it will look different.
An unprecedented collaboration of owners, head coaches, position coaches, medical people and an active player and a union official took a significant step toward preserving one of the game’s more recognizable yet dangerous plays. …
While the proposed changes might not appear dramatic to the naked eye, they are to the people involved with the game. Among the differences: There will be no running start or pre-kick motion by cover teams and no wedge blocks by return squads. Also, there will be a 15-yard, non-contact zone from the spot of the kick, with the return team required to have a minimum of eight players lined up 15 yards from the ball. The expectation is that this will not only take some of the bigger linemen off the field because there will be a premium on agility and speed to operate in space. …
Troy Vincent, the league’s executive vice president of football operations, said his goal was to keep the kickoff while make it safer and, potentially, more exciting. The belief is that there will be more space for returners to run, creating opportunities for big plays.” …
“It’s going to give guys a better chance to execute good, solid football technique,” said [John] Harbaugh. “So blockers are going to be in position to square up on blockers and make good football blocks. There won’t be the awkward angles as much as there were before. There will be fewer on-a-rail-type injuries, too — and more returns, more cleaner returns. That’s good for the game, too. You better get a returner.”
PFT – “I’m not so sure that you’re not gonna see a handful of unique returns now when you have eight [blockers] inside that initial 15-yard zone,” [Sean] Payton said. “I think there’s space and I also think there’s also opportunities that present themselves for the kicking team.
There are three reasons I have absolutely no problems with these rule changes:
1. These are being done to preserve the kickoff in some way, shape or form, as opposed to eliminating it altogether. Concussions are five times more likely on kickoffs than plays from scrimmage. Keeping the play as is while talking a good game about “doing whatever it takes to keep players safe” would be an insult to the collective intelligence of the country. Which is hard to do these days, admittedly. It’s hard enough to sit through the score/replay review/extra point/commercial/touchback/commercial cycle of every touchdown and not want to blow your brains out without just by rule putting the ball at the 20. Which is the next alternative if this doesn’t work.
B) There’s some weird aspect of human nature that convinces us that we are perpetually at the exact right amount of safety, and if you make anything even a tiny bit safer you’re ruining life. Not just in sports, but in all things. I mean, think about how long it took the men building skyscrapers to harness themselves to the girders. When the Empire State Building was going up, Irishmen fell to the pavement like raindrops. When I was a kid my uncle listened to a talk radio host who spent months doing nothing but trying to get the seat belt laws repealed because they were violation of his freedom to die flying thought the windshield or something. How many decades elapsed between the invention of the slapshot and the appearance of the first goalie mask? Six? Eight? Or how long it took football helmets to go from hard shells to someone deciding to bolt on a semi-circular bar across his face? And I guarantee when he did, someone was complaining it was ruining the game because Bronko Nagurski never needed to protect his face, and look at how much pussy he got. Come to think of it, remember when they extended the netting at Major League parks? Old bucks like Stephen King bitched about that like it was further proof the whole country was going soft. But I’ve yet to see the stands along the baselines empty out in disgust.
So yeah, this is yet another change. It might be a trainwreck. It could save the grand and noble tradition of the kickoff by making it safer and thus saving the jobs of dozens of borderline players who earn a roster spot on special teams. Or it could actually make for more competitive kickoffs with longer returns by eliminating the crash test dummy effect on the 300 lb fat bodies currently plugging up the field. Which brings me to:
III – The Patriots picked up Cordarelle Patterson this offseason (first reported by Pardon My Take). An absolute bust as a first round pick at wideout averaging just 32 receptions a season. But who’s arguably the best kick returner in the game, with a 30.2 yard average on 153 career returns with 5 TDs
and who set a record that will never be broken with a 109-yarder. They added this Electric Factory to a team that hasn’t had an above average kick return specialist since Kevin Faulk and that was putting guys like Dion Lewis and Danny Amendola back there out of desperation. Under new rules that everyone from Troy Vincent to John Harbaugh to Sean Payton think will open up the field for high-end athletes like Patterson. Goddammit if Bill Belichick didn’t perfectly Dumbledore this. That he didn’t see the league trending this way and took advantage of the new rules before they ever were rules. Mostly I’m about preserving football and promoting player safety. But if it helps the Patriots grab another ring? I’ll take that as an ancillary benefit. Win/win.